Keenan’s Charge

at Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863, where part of a cavalry regiment, barely 300 in number, held 10,000 men in check until the last cavalry man fell, deserves to rank with the Charge of the Six Hundred, and the fight at Thermopylæ. It is the theme of a poem by George Parsons Lathrop. “As Keenan fought with his men side by side, So they rode ’till there were no more to ride, But over them lying-there, shattered and mute What deep echo rolls? ’Tis a death salute From the cannon in place; for heroes ye braved Your fate not in vain; the army was saved.” Keenan’s Charge (1881).